Conservative “unbreakable” use of buddypress

I just successfully installed BuddyPress, and I have the whole directory password protected. Members can create their own blogs, though I have not tried any extended features.

I would like to open up my install to my community, however, I want to be very conservative with my use of BuddyPress, because I don’t have the programming skills to support the technology. I’m thrilled I got it running, and I just want my community to be able to use it, I wish to learn how to make regular backups, and I don’t want my community to have functionality that can take the community down.

What can I “allow” my community to do?

It makes sense to me to give sub-blog owners a few templates, or just one. Really, I feel like too many templates will confuse the community, creating a lack of cohesiveness. Maybe I can have a few color schemes of the same template. Can my users upload templates? Should they be able to?

I would like all activity to be presented on the main blog page. Basically, if anyone creates a sub-blog post, I would like that to be presented on the main page. Is that what the “all activity” widget does?

I set things so that “blog owners” or “sub-blog owners” can’t install plugins, and I would like a nice, safe set of plugins and widgets that they can use without causing any damage. What about that WP plugin installer feature? Will someone gain access to it and break things?

Basically, can this forum give me advice as to a “safety-first” configuration of BuddyPress? One where all options given to users are really safe and won’t take the community down?

Also, I will do more reading about this, but an effective backup solution/testing environment creation would also be useful.

Best wishes, and thanks for putting together this incredible software!

It makes sense to me to give sub-blog owners a few templates, or just one. Really, I feel like too many templates will confuse the community, creating a lack of cohesiveness. Maybe I can have a few color schemes of the same template. Can my users upload templates? Should they be able to?

No, only you can. You’ll need to upload them to /wp-content/themes/.

I would like all activity to be presented on the main blog page. Basically, if anyone creates a sub-blog post, I would like that to be presented on the main page. Is that what the “all activity” widget does?

Yes.

I set things so that “blog owners” or “sub-blog owners” can’t install plugins, and I would like a nice, safe set of plugins and widgets that they can use without causing any damage. What about that WP plugin installer feature? Will someone gain access to it and break things?

You (as the admin) can upload plugins and widgets either via FTP (or similar) or via the Browser/Installer feature. You can also make plugins run on every site by putting them into the /wp-content/mu-plugins/ folder. The end user can activate or deactivate the plugins, but with the default user permissions, they don’t have access to the Browser/Installer page (I have just tested this).

Now, if I would like users to be able to share PDF files, images, videos, etc., how would I do that?

For some reason, I am not sure if I’m “really” using WordPress, and I don’t know what the “admin” can do, and what sub-blog owners can and can’t do.

Basically, can I tell them, if you want to share images, documents, etc., just create a blog for yourself and start uploading? So, I think there is something called next gen image gallery, or I can surf around on the buddy press forum and find plugins that do a good job with file sharing/viewing?

If a plugin is available in the “main” blog, and it works there, does that mean that the same plugin is available for all of the blogs?

What kind of user functionality tends to break BuddyPress? What do I need to avoid, so that I have the easiest time with support?

As you’ve surmised, if you want to share files or use an image gallery, you’re going to have to find a 3rd-party plugin that provides those features. As to how well they will work with WPMU and BuddyPress, you’ll have to try to find out.

Yes, a plugin installed to /mu-plugins/ will automatically be used on every blog, and one installed to /plugins/ will be available to every blog to use.